Yesterday we stopped by Gloucester, MA for a moment. There is a monument to fishermen lost at sea. There are over 5,000 names of fishermen lost from the Gloucester port. Among them is the crew of the Andrea Gail: Billy Tyne, Alfred Pierre, David “Sully” Sullivan, Michael “Bugsy” Moran, Dale “Murph” Murphy, and Bobby Shatford. The Andrea Gail is the subject of the book and movie, “The Perfect Storm”. Their names are among the 10 tablets in a semi circle around the statue of a seaman at the wheel of a ship.

There were a couple of people planting flowers around the statue. I asked them if they were from a civic organization or were a landscaping business. They weren’t either. They were the sister and son of a fisherman lost at sea in 1994. The deceased fisherman’s father starting planting flowers at the base of this statue and he planted every spring. He did it for 14 years until 2008 when he died. After he died, the fisherman’s sister and son took over and have planted the last 5 years. There was no fanfare. There was no plaque placed by those who planted the flowers. Tens of thousands of people will take pictures of this iconic statue this summer not knowing that the beautiful flowers at the base of their picture were planted anonymously by a family honoring a fisherman lost at sea and a father whose heart was broken upon losing his son. And as Paul Harvey liked to day, now you know the rest of the story.